A Lily Among Thorns (21 page)

“Well?” she said. “Behold your handiwork. Are you satisfied?”

He smiled ruefully. “You look like someone who wouldn’t associate with me. I feel as if I ought to kiss your hand.”

“Well, if you feel you must, don’t let me stop you.” She held out her hand.

He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Slowly, he reached out his own gloved hand to grasp her bare one. She didn’t pull away. His eyes closed involuntarily as his lips brushed her naked skin. The insides of his eyelids were awash with visions of kissing her arm, her shoulder, her breasts—

He dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back. “Sorry, I’ve never been good at doing the pretty.”

“I thought you did that rather well.”

The little sentence hung in the air between them, and then Solomon, already nervous at the prospect of an evening of hobnobbing with the Upper Ten Thousand—
spying,
he thought,
I’m nervous about
spying—said, “Those little flowers in your hair match splendidly. Where did you find them?”

He cursed inwardly. Of all the things he might have said,
why
did he pick that one? It was like at school, when he hadn’t been able to talk about cards or racing or hounds or boxing, hadn’t known a thing about any of the usual pursuits of the wealthy, so he’d tried to talk about clothes. It was an acceptable topic of conversation for gentlemen, but when
he
did it, it was because he was the Hatherdasher.

Serena grinned at him, though. “I got a patch of material from my dressmaker and sent one of the maids out shopping.”

“You’re going to make Uncle Hathaway rich,” he said with awed sincerity. It was the nearest he could safely come to
You’re beautiful.
He thought it would make her uncomfortable if he said that.

She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t do it for your uncle,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “This is a mission.” But there was a warm undercurrent in her voice that said she meant exactly the opposite. That she’d done it for him.

“I—I got you something to go with it.” Not looking at her, he lifted a thin, wrapped parcel from the inlaid table next to them. “I know you never wear jewelry, but—”

Her face went cold, suddenly. “Jewelry is a bad investment. You can never sell it for what it cost.”

He swallowed. This had seemed like such a good idea when he saw it in the window of the pawnshop. Of course jewelry was something men gave their mistresses, but they were going to a ball and she didn’t
have
any. And it had cost only four shillings and he’d thought it would be all right. “I didn’t mean—it wasn’t very expensive. And if you hate it, I can probably take it back, so don’t feel you have to, I just thought you might like it—” He tried to cut the string around the package, missed, and almost sliced his thumb open.

“Let me,” she said, and he handed her the knife. She sliced the wrapping open and unrolled it with movements so precise they seemed angry. Then she tipped the bracelet into her palm and stared at it. It was made of gray-and-white cameos, ringed
with glittering chips of faceted steel and linked together by tiny wrought-iron loops. On each cameo was a woman’s face, contorted and howling with fury. Some had coiling snakes instead of hair.

“I’m a siren, not a gorgon, you know.” But the warmth was back in her voice. She liked it.

Solomon let out the breath he’d been holding and grinned at her. “You’d like to turn people to stone with a look, though, wouldn’t you? Hold out your wrist.”

The first person Serena saw in Mrs. Elbourn’s ballroom was Lord Smollett. He took one look at the deep blue gown with its spangles and guffawed. “Must say, you never
used
to need that much fabric to dress as a lady of the evening!”

Serena met Solomon’s eyes and sighed. “I can’t win, can I?”

“No, so why try? You would look magnificent in scarlet.”

Serena hastily turned her attention to the ballroom. Everyone in the room was watching them. The low murmur of conversation rose to an excited hum. At least Mrs. Elbourn looked pleasantly scandalized instead of horrified. This would make her party the talk of London. Perhaps that would be enough to keep them from being tossed out on their ears.

Solomon’s shoulders slumped. “Shall we try the buffet table? Maybe there are lobster patties.”

Serena felt warm. Was it because of all the eyes on her, or because Solomon had noticed she loved lobster patties when Antoine made them last week for supper? Before she could answer, a young matron in a towering purple-and-gold turban appeared and grabbed Serena’s arm. With a small shock, she recognized Jenny Warrington, who had been so vivacious and pretty at school and had always made Serena feel like a colorless stick of a girl.

Serena hadn’t thought about her in years and was vaguely surprised to find she still existed.

“Serena! It’s been an age! How lovely to see you!”

“Good evening, Jenny,” Serena said bemusedly.

Jenny, as vivacious and pretty as ever, was unabashed. “I daresay I should have come visit you at that inn, and I would
have, for I was dreadfully curious, but well, you know, my dear Pursleigh wouldn’t have liked it.”

“Pursleigh?” Serena said, caught off guard. So Jenny was married to one of René’s spies. And Serena hadn’t known because Lord Pursleigh might be a turncoat, but he still didn’t want his precious wife anywhere near the scandalous Lady Serena Ravenshaw.

“Oh yes, I’m Lady Pursleigh now. My husband won’t like that I’m talking to you now either of course, and really I was planning to increase my consequence by cutting you dead, but that was before I saw what you were wearing! You never used to be so well-dressed. The way it changes color in the light—tell me who made it and I shall fire my modiste on the spot!” The clusters of blond curls at her temples bobbed with enthusiasm.

Serena gestured to a quietly beaming Solomon to take himself off while she advertised his wares. As Jenny monologued about Pursleigh and her sister Dora and her dear little nephew, Serena turned her bracelet round and round and thought.

It was true what she had said. Jewelry was a bad investment. But she hadn’t said the rest, hadn’t said how wearing jewelry was surrendering, how a necklace settled down around your throat like the yoke of servitude, so cunningly wrought that you were expected to be grateful for it. Already, just looking at that parcel, her throat had felt constricted.

She couldn’t have told him that—she would have choked on the words. Wasn’t she supposed to be indifferent to them all? Wasn’t she supposed to have shed her pride along with her reputation? Let them think what they wanted, so long as it swelled her bank account, wasn’t that her motto? And besides, if she’d said it, Solomon would have put the box away and tried to hide his disappointment and she couldn’t, even though she’d been crawlingly aware that men at the ball would see her wearing it and think smugly,
So, the Siren’s finally found a fisherman who can tame her!

Then she’d seen the bracelet. It had cost ten shillings at the most. Not a mark of ownership at all—just a cheap trinket that had made Solomon think of her. And she
liked
it. Even when she’d heard the clasp click into place, like a tiny manacle, she had felt only—secure.

“Serena?” said Jenny impatiently. “Serena, are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“No, Jenny, I’m not.”

For a moment, Jenny’s blue eyes narrowed in irritation.. Then she shrugged and smiled. “Well, you always
were
peculiar! I was just saying that I can’t thank you enough for bringing Mr. Hathaway to liven up our evening. He’s terribly handsome, and Dewington’s bound to be mortified. Is it true the other one’s been resurrected? And Mrs. Elbourn looks about to burst, though that’s probably because of
you
. I shall certainly ask Pursleigh to stop by his shop next time he’s in Savile Row. I don’t care
what
he says, I
will
have a gown like that.” It was like watching a partridge bob along, singing to itself, and knowing it was about to be shot. It felt so strange, to have the upper hand of Jenny. Serena wasn’t entirely sure she liked it.

When Jenny finally abandoned her to spread whatever information she thought she had gleaned to the entire ballroom, Solomon was still at the buffet table with a plate of lobster patties in his hand, staring moodily at the dance floor.

“You really ought to look cheerier when news of your talent is about to become a nine days’ wonder.” She snagged a patty from his plate and popped it into her mouth. “Your matchmaking plans for your uncle and Mrs. Cook are proceeding apace.”

He summoned a smile for her. “Thank you.”

“I assure you, when we break into Elbourn’s library you will repay me in full.”

He looked at her hopefully. “Can we go and do that now?”

She laughed. “That eager to leave? Don’t you want to ask anyone to dance? You strike me as the dancing sort.”

He looked at the dance floor for a moment, wistfully. “Maybe. But I’m not about to place any girl in the embarrassing position of having to refuse me.” He put down the plate and looked at his hands. Then, with a motion so angry it startled her, he yanked off his gloves and dropped them on the floor. “I don’t know why I bother wearing these when everyone can see right through them.”

“No, or when you have such nice hands,” Serena said. He blinked at her, and she turned her face away. They’d been notflirting all evening, but that had been a bit much. It was wrong of her to flirt, anyway, when she didn’t know what was between them or what she wanted.

It was wrong and it was stupid, because in the end he might be hurt, but even so he could never have meant anything serious. He was the most respectable person she’d ever met. He was too kind to ask her to be his mistress, and anything else was impossible. She was the one who’d end up feeling ruined all over again, and she knew it. But she couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Go on, ask someone,” she said, wishing she sounded less sullen. “How about that bored-looking girl with glasses? She’s very pretty.”
And sweet and innocent, too, I’m sure. Perfect for you.

Solomon didn’t even glance at the girl. Instead, he rolled his eyes at Serena. “Do you honestly think there’s one woman in this room who would be anything but aghast at an invitation to dance from an employee of Hathaway’s Fine Tailoring?”

Serena could have told him that Jenny Pursleigh thought him terribly handsome. She could have told him that the way his black cutaway and dove-gray breeches fit him was a tailor’s dream come true. She could have pointed out the interested looks he was getting from half the young ladies in the room.

“There’s me,” she said instead, and then hated how she must sound, like some blushing, hopeful debutante angling for an invitation. She had never used to hate every word that came out of her mouth. Before Solomon, she’d been comfortable with herself.

Well, that was a lie. She’d disliked herself for as long as she could remember. She’d just been used to it, before.

He gaped at her, then looked at the ground. “I’m not a very good dancer.”

She bit her tongue, hard. “I see.”

He looked up hurriedly. “It’s not that! It’s just—I’m not a very good dancer.”

“You, Solomon?” she said with savage incredulity. “Surely you and your wholesome family thrived at country assemblies.”

“Elijah danced. I usually played the piano.” He shrugged. “You’re the one who must have danced the night away.”

“I was a wallflower,” she said flatly.

He stared at her in shock.

Take that, Jenny Warrington,
she thought, but at the same time she was startled that he hadn’t guessed at the stubborn, awkward, silent girl she’d been. Sometimes it felt a lifetime away, but other times she didn’t feel as if she’d changed that much.

“Well, all right, then,” he said. “Let’s dance.” He took her hand and maneuvered them into a set that was forming.

At first, Serena was absorbed in watching Solomon’s enthusiasm and enjoying the glittering swish of her skirts when she turned. He was right, he really wasn’t a very good dancer. She smiled.

She was jerked unpleasantly from her thoughts when James Corbin, who had his arm round her waist and was turning her round, allowed his hand to slip too low. A glance told her that nearly every man in the set was leering unpleasantly at her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed. What was wrong with her?

Her next neighbor caressed her palm with his thumb, the next whispered filthy recollections of their dalliance in her ear, and so on down the line. She clenched her teeth together, fixed
an icy smile on her face, and waited for the dance to be over. She didn’t even turn her head to see what oaf was causing the steady progression of
oofs
and
ouches
that followed her down the set.

Lord Braithwaite held on to her arm for several seconds too long and she actually had to wrench away. She turned her back on him—and there was a heavy thud behind her. She turned round again to see Braithwaite sprawled on the floor. He rubbed at his elbow and glared at Solomon, who was standing over him looking very, very apologetic.